Monday, 19 August 2013

Rendezvous 2013

Group shot at the end of Rendezvous 2013, Day 1.
Levels of awesome in this photo are too damn high!

Alex, Oliver and I had the pleasure of going to Rendezvous 2013 this year. It is an annual event hosted by Parkour Generations, who are also joined by other coaches from around the world, to one spot with the aims of spreading the knowledge. Joining the coaches (and the reason the event is called what it is) were two members of the Yamakasi (this year it was Chau Belle and Williams Belle) also come along for the ride, offering their knowledge and experience.

As you can see from the photo above, the turnout was huge. It was a two-day event and each day had a different location:

- Day 1 was hosted at the LEAP Park in Westminster.
- Day 2 was held at various sports in the Canada Water area.

We were all split into five groups based on experience/ability and moved around different locations; in each we would be further split into smaller groups for the size of each location or exercise. It was fairly knackering and I think we all had to pace ourselves so that we could keep on going at the end. It was great to be training with so many other people and with such a great collection of coaches, and I'm sure we all learnt and progressed because of it.

Alex's thoughts: "Initially I didn't think I'd learned loads from the event, but thinking back on it I did. I'd never tried cat-to-cat (hanging on a wall, jumping 180 to another wall) before, but at the event threw myself in without thinking too much and found I could do it, which would not otherwise have happened. I also really enjoyed a 30-minute rail-balance exercise with a 2m drop into a canal on one side - really challenged you mentally to stay calm and focussed."